


And They Were Benders...

by ekayla



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: AtLA, Avatar the Last Airbender AU, F/M, ben solo is zuko, im terrible at tags, pyro ren
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:47:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25890823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekayla/pseuds/ekayla
Summary: Rey has lived her whole life alone in the desert, wondering what she is missing in her life. Then comes along Finn, a waterbender from the South Pole, trying to make his way to Master Luke in the Northern Water Tribe. Turns out, Rey can waterbend. Now she much choose, use her powers to help stop the war against the Fire Nation, or wait in the desert for her family, who may never come?
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 5
Kudos: 9





	And They Were Benders...

The sun beat down on her hair, pulled back into three brown buns. She wiped the sweat from her brow before she pulled her bag of scavenged parts through the sand. Hopefully her finds today will earn her enough to afford a meal today. She took a minute in the sun and dreamt of what the food would taste like in her mouth. 

Soon enough, she made it to her speeder. It took her a minute to load everything on board, but as soon she had, she made her way into town. Every day it seemed like she had to go further and further into the desert to find abandoned ships and places to find things to trade. Luckily, or rather unluckily, she’d been here her entire life and so she’s used to the heat. 

Finally, she made it to the small place they all call town. There’s only a few buildings; Maz’s Cantina, a small motel of sorts, and the Trading Post. She passed the Cantina and headed towards the Trading Post. 

“Cabbages! Get your cabbages here!” A man shouted as she walked by. She made a face at the green vegetable the man holds in both of his hands. She wouldn’t buy cabbages even if she had all the money in the world. He saw her looking and shoved a cabbage in her face. “It’s a two-for-one sale today!” 

“No thanks,” she politely declined, and kept walking. 

She goes inside, and the man behind the large counter recognized her immediately when she stepped up with her bag of parts. 

“Well well well, if it isn’t Rey the Scavenger,” he growled. “What can I do for you today?” 

She responded by hurling her bag onto the counter with a thud. 

“Ah, I see. Hmm.” He took several minutes, going through each item Rey has brought to him. He grunted before speaking again. “I think this is worth  _ fifteen _ credits.” 

Rey’s vision started to blur with red. “What?! Fifteen credits is nothing! This is totally worth more than-” 

“Fifteen credits or nothing. Take it or leave it, scavenger.” He began to push her items towards the edge of the counter towards her. 

“Fine. Fifteen,” she reluctantly agreed, noticing a grim smile forming on his face. 

After she gets her credits, she heads back out into the heat, ironically hoping it will cool her off. Plutt has been preying on her desperation for years, always giving her much less credits than her parts were worth, knowing that she had no choice to accept because her next meal depended on it. As Rey stormed off into the desert, dragging her net behind her and looking down at her feet, she didn’t notice someone walking right towards her. 

“Ow, hey! Watch where you’re going.” She huffed as their bodies collided. The boy was about sixteen, same age as Rey. He wore a blue tunic, which was unusual as everyone in the desert wore light colors like cream to stay cool. Rey quickly guessed that the boy wasn't from around Jakku.

“Sorry, sorry!” He held out his empty hands. “Do you know where I can get something to eat around here?” 

Yeah, he definitely wasn’t from Jakku. 

“Yeah, Maz’s Cantina. But you gotta make sure you have credits, Maz doesn’t take kindly to non-paying customers. She says they ‘take up space from the real money’” Rey kicked some sand with her foot. 

“Dang, I actually just ran out of money at the last town I was in.” 

Rey, who had been in Jakku for all sixteen years of her life, was intrigued by the traveler. 

“Where are you from?” 

“The Southern Water Tribe. The name’s Finn.” He held out a hand to her. She studied it a moment, then decided to shake it. 

“Rey.” 

Finn smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, Rey.” 

“So where are you going then? Surely you didn’t come all the way from the Southern Water Tribe to the Jakku Desert, especially knowing we have no water here.” 

“No,” Finn laughed, “no I didn’t. I’m just passing through. I’m actually on my way up to the Northern Water Tribe. There’s a waterbending master there who trains students, and I hope to be one of them. I’m a waterbender.” He held his chin up and pushed his shoulders back. 

Rey had heard tons of stories about benders from locals and travelers alike, especially about firebenders because of The War, but she’d never met a  _ waterbender _ before. She honestly didn’t fully believe they truly existed until this moment.

“A real waterbender?” 

Finn looked over to her, surprised by her question. “Of course. What do you mean?” 

She glanced down at her feet before answering. “It’s just, I don’t meet a lot of benders out here. Sometimes the Fire Nation soldiers come through, but I’ve never talked to any of them before. I think you’re the first waterbender I’ve met.” 

“Wait, really? I’m the first one? Oh wow.” Even though this came as a shock to him, he understood. He looked down to his hands. “I’m actually the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe. The Fire Nation captured all of them years ago when I was just a baby, killing my parents in the process.” He paused, then made himself tall again. “But even though I’m the last, I’m going to fight against the Fire Nation and help end this war, anyway I can. And the first step is going to Master Skywalker.” 

Impressed, Rey stood there for a moment, her eyes scanning over Finn. She couldn’t believe it. A real waterbender, right in front of her. Still not entirely convinced, she got an idea. 

“Can you show me some bending?” 

Finn’s eyes lit up. “Sure! I don’t know much, but I can show you what I do know!” He looked around, forgetting they were standing in the middle of a desert town. He weakly smiled at Rey. “But, we have to find some water first.” 

She felt in her pocket the fifteen credits she had just got from Plutt. Her instincts told her to hold onto them, it’s all she had for food today. But something in here, deep within her, told her to trust Finn, trust that there was something about meeting him that was bigger than her. Bigger than both of them. 

Pulling the credits out, she said, “Let’s go to Maz’s.” 

  
  


They walked in and instantly Maz walked over to them from the bar. 

“Rey, you know the rules. Paying customers only inside.” she chided. 

“I know, and today, we are. Can we have two waters?” She showed Maz her sack of credits. 

Maz’s eyes widened before she nodded and headed back to the bar for the waters. In the Jakku Desert, water was as expensive as a half a meal, so Rey just spent about all that she had. She really hoped this was worth it and that Finn wasn’t full of shit. 

They sat down at the bar and Maz returned not long after with their drinks. 

“Alright, let’s see it.” 

Finn moved his cup in front of his body and held his hand out in front of it. Suddenly, the water lifted up, like magic, and it danced around with his hand. Rey watched, wide eyes and mesmerized, as it swirled around as Finn willed it. Then, he settled it back down into the cup. 

“Finn, that was amazing! Incredible! I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.” All the doubt in her mind about this boy flew away, like what she wished she could do to get away from this desert town. And maybe she could, with Finn. But she couldn’t, not yet - not until her family came back for her, like they promised. She hung her head. 

“What’s wrong?” 

Rey hesitated, unsure if she wanted to let him in on that part of her yet. “Oh, nothing. Can you show me water bending again?” 

Finn smiled, suddenly wanting to impress her. “Watch this,” he said, holding his hand up towards both of their cups of water. The liquids began to elevate together, and Finn’s face showed much more concentration than last time. The pockets of water hovered high above the empty glasses for a moment, then he moved them to the right. They vibrated as they moved, and all of a sudden, Finn’s concentration broke and so did the water bubbles - right on top of a burly man’s head. 

“What the hell?” The man jumped up, red-faced and fuming. If he were a kettle of water, steam would be pouring out of his spout. 

Finn quickly stood up and backed away, pushing Rey behind him. She didn’t appreciate this, as she knew she could handle herself here. She shoved herself in front of Finn and stood her ground to the burly man. 

“It was an accident. Surely, you understand.” Rey’s attempt at calming the man only seemed to make it worse. Two other men joined him, surrounding her and Finn. “Uh, Finn?” she called over her shoulder. 

“From the looks of it, you don’t seem to be from here,” he said to Finn. “Any traveler must have money. You owe it to me - all of it,” he growled. 

Finn threw his hands up. “I have nothing, I swear!” 

The two other men grabbed him and held his hands behind his back as the burly man approached Rey, standing only inches from her. 

“What about you, scavenger?” 

Rey didn’t move back, but heard Finn struggling behind her. He grabbed her by her wrist and twisted, her pain causing a small whimper to escape from her lips. 

“You let her go!” Finn screamed, 

The man scoffed. “I’ll let her go for 500 credits!” He looked down at Rey. “Until then, I need someone to work for me.” 

She stared him down, hoping she was hiding the fear from her eyes. She knew she couldn’t take the burly man in front of her, nor could she take all three of them with her staff. She didn’t know what to do, until a crazy desperate idea popped into her mind. She closed her eyes and concentrated, holding out her free hand towards the bar. 

The man’s eyes followed her hand, confusion on his face. He glanced over to his comrades, who were equally confused, before the three of them, and those watching, started laughing. 

“What are you trying to do, girl? Bend something?” he mocked, causing more laughter to erupt. But it only caused Rey to concentrate even harder, focusing all she had onto the liquid in the giant water jugs behind the bar, until… 

Suddenly, water was pouring onto the men, who in their shock and surprise released Rey and Finn. They took off running, out the door, as fast as their legs could carry them. Rey knew the men would try to chase them once they realized what happened, so she kept running, with Finn following behind her, straight into the desert. Finally, they stopped, both of them bent over trying to catch their breath. 

“You just- Rey-” Finn struggled to get the words out. “Did you just waterbend?” 

Rey’s breath steadied to a normal pace. “I think I did? I’m not really sure. I just wanted to get out of there, away from those men, and save you… I wasn’t really thinking past that. Next thing I knew, water was pouring over them and we were running.” 

Everything happened so fast that she needed a moment to catch herself up with the events. Did she just waterbend? She could never do that before, and she’d been stuck in some tough situations before. But then again, every tough time before had only been her, alone. She never had someone else to worry about, she’d never had a  _ friend _ . 

Finn looked around, taking in the vastness of the desert surrounding them. There wasn’t anything in sight, the small town only a blimp on the skyline. He didn’t like that he couldn’t feel any water; he didn’t fill up his water pouch since they were running from the men at the cantina. As a waterbender, it was dangerous to be out anywhere without water, but especially out in the middle of a blazing desert. “Rey, we need to get out of this sun.” 

She nodded, making a silent decision to trust him, yet again. “Follow me.” 

Rey led him back a bit towards the town, but when they got closer, she took a sharp right. They walked for another mile or so, and when Finn felt like he was about to pass out, he saw it. A giant animal-like machine, laying down on it’s side. Rey opened a panel on what would be its belly. “Home sweet home,” she sarcastically said. 

The space was small, only having enough room for the necessities; a small pallet used for sleeping, a box turned on its side with a few spare parts sitting on top, what appeared to be a pile of clothing, and an extra pair of brown worn boots. They sat down on the dusty floor. 

While they’d been walking, Rey had tried unsuccessfully to compile her thoughts. Luckily, it was Finn that spoke first. 

“Rey, you’re a waterbender.” 

She scoffed. “No way, I don’t know what exactly happened back there, but I  _ know _ , I’m not a waterbender. Don’t you think I would know something like that? It was just a freak accident. Someone else must have dumped that water on them. Maybe it was Maz.” 

“I don’t know who Maz is, but I know what I saw. No one dumped that water on them. It came straight out of the giant tanks and spilled right on the men. Why are you denying this?” 

Rey crossed her arms, tight, and looked away, refusing to give merit to what he was saying. 

He kept going. “Think about it. You’ve lived your whole life so far in a desert - no large bodies of water. Haven’t you felt like you’ve been missing something, or some part of you for your whole life?” 

Her gaze softened as he spoke, but she kept her arms close to her body. So what if he was right? Maybe she did waterbend in the cantina, but only out of desperation. She didn’t need to waterbend to survive. She’d been doing just fine before this kid showed up. She didn’t need any of this. 

But something in her connected to what he said.  _ Haven’t you felt like you’ve been missing something, or some part of you for your whole life? _ She had always felt that, though she’d always thought it was her parents. The people who dropped her off here all those years ago. The people who promised her that they would come back for her.  _ That’s  _ what she was missing. Not this. It couldn’t be this. 

Right?

“Rey, come on. You know this is true. You’re a  _ waterbender _ , just like me. I know what you’re feeling, because I felt it too. My bending started when I was a little kid, but it was the same way. I was upset that Gran-gran wasn’t giving me another tart, and next thing I knew, water was flying around everywhere. She was so mad,” He chuckled fondly at the memory before changing his voice to be more serious. “But she was also really happy that her only son was a waterbender. And I have to make her proud.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “A few years ago, she was taken from me. Killed by the Fire Nation during one of their raids on our tribe. That’s why I have to go find Master Luke, so I can fight. So Rey, I understand that you don’t want this, but the Fire Nation has taken so much from us all. You’ve been blessed with an ability, like me. Please,” he begged, his voice cracking with his last word. 

Rey stood up, walking to the other side of the small room, her back facing him. She stayed like that for a moment, thinking. Finally, she turned around. “Okay fine. I did waterbend. But what do I do with that? Like you said, I live in the desert.” She sat back down, defeated. 

Finn took her hands in his own and looked her straight in the eyes. “Come with me.” 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading chapter 1 ~ 
> 
> I'm a slow writer, but chapter 2 is in the works :)


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